It is called, with great verisimilitude, a drama, by John Owen, and he not inaptly compares it with "The Prometheus Bound" of Eschylus, Goethe's "Faust," Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and Calderon's "Wonder-Working Magician."1 Yet this word "drama" certainly suggests, if it does not require, action accompanying and helping to create the necessity for the speech, and in the Book of Job, except in the prologue, there is no action. Whatever may be said of its spirit, in its form it does not resemble the other great dramas to which Mr. Owen compares it. Biblical scholars have generally classified the Book of Job with the "Wisdom Literature." The Wisdom Literature was the nearest approximation which the Hebrews made to philosophy. The philosopher is interested in truth for its own sake; interested in the interrelationship of different truths; interested in correlating and harmonizing truths and so adjusting them as to make a more or less complete system of truth. The Hebrew had little or no interest in this process; he never undertook it; he was interested in truths but not in truth, and in truths only as they bore upon conduct and life. His wisdom, therefore, took the form not of general systems, but of specific affirmations of principles in their relation to actual life conditions. The Hebrew's philosophy was not abstract, but concrete; not generic, but applied; not scholastic, but expressed in the terms of experience. Thus the tendency of his philosophy 1 The Five Great Sceptical Dramas of History, by John Owen.

was either to aphoristic forms, as in the Book of Proverbs; or to dramatic forms, as in the Song of Songs and the Book of Job; or to an admixture of the two, as in the Book of Ecclesiastes. On the whole it appears to me that in Biblical criticism the Book of Job has been correctly classified; that its epic character as the narrative of a soul struggle, and its dramatic character-as the interplay of human thought and emotion, — are subsidiary to its philosophic character, as the discussion of a profound problem of human life; but that this discussion is not abstract and intellectual but vital and dramatic. Its interest lies not in any theory which it promulgates, but in human experience and in the bearing of a popular theory upon human experience in a time of trial. Professor Kent calls the book "Philosophical Drama."1 I should rather, with a slight difference in emphasis, call it Dramatic Philosophy.2

1 The Wise Men of Ancient History and their Proverbs, by Charles Foster Kent, Ph. D.

2 It is hardly necessary to consider as a possible theory that the Book of Job is historical; the epilogue alone is quite conclusive upon that point. At the same time it is possible that it had an historical foundation, as most of the greater works of fiction have had. "Hamlet' rests on an historical foundation; so does 'Macbeth;' yet they are works of imagination. "The Ring and the Book' is founded on fact; Mr. Browning dug the substance of the story out of an old law report. In Ezekiel Job is referred to as if he were a well-known person. It is possible, of course, that the allusion here may be literary. We often speak of Polonius, or Colonel Newcome, or Mr. Pickwick as though they were real characters. It is, however, altogether probable that Job was an historical person, and that traditions concerning him were current

Without, then, endeavoring to classify the Book of Job, we may say of it that it has some of the qualities of all three types of literature, — the epic, the drama, philosophy, but not all of the characteristics of either. If it be regarded as an epic, it is what Professor Genung calls it, an epic of the inner life. The epics of Homer deal with external adventure and with character as it is evolved out of and manifested in adventurous experiences. There is no action in the Book of Job. Throughout the poem the central figure sits among the ashes, his only adventures those of the spirit, striving by much vain reflection to solve the mystery of life. Not even by external symbols, as in Dante, are his spiritual struggles represented. If the book be regarded as a drama it is a monodrama. The celestial movement is introduced in the prologue simply to interpret the drama to us; the wife and the friends are but foils, partly to give occasion to Job's discourse, partly by contrast to interpret it. All attempt to find in them distinctive characters is in vain. Froude well says, "The friends repeat one another with but little difference; the sameness being of course intentional, as showing that they were not speaking for themselves but as representatives of a prevailing opinion." The only actor in the drama is Job himself; the only action the

1

among the Jews." Seven Puzzling Bible Books, by Washington Gladden, D. D., p. 109.

1 Short Studies on Great Subjects: The Book of Job, by James Anthony Froude, M. A., p. 249.

battle between faith and skepticism, hope and despair, in his own soul. If the book be regarded as philosophy, it is philosophy translated into the terms of experience. There is here no philosopher coolly studying the problem of life as a geologist studies an ancient fossil, or an anatomist the dead body which he dissects. The problems of life, love, death, and sorrow are not studied as problems. There is no argument here for immortality as in the Phædo of Socrates, no argument for the existence of a God as in Diman's "Theistic Argument" or Flint's "Theism," no balancing of probabilities to reach a conclusion as in Bishop Butler's "Analogy of Religion." The soul of a good and godly man is portrayed in its living agony, seeking to find, in spite of the apparent injustice of life, a ground for its faith in the reality and the sovereignty of truth and goodness. Job is a kind of spiritual Laocöon, wrestling with the twin serpents of doubt and despair, and to him they are such dreadful realities that he has no thought for fine philosophies or scientific reasonings. The method of the Book of Job is the reverse of the scientific method; the problem is presented to the reader as one of experience, not as one of philosophy.

The date of the book is entirely unknown, as is its author; formerly it was supposed to be one of the oldest books in the Bible; 1 modern scholars

1 Thus in Townsend's Bible, which undertook to print the whole of the Bible in a true chronological order, the Book of Job is printed among the Genesis narratives immediately prior to the

regard it as one of the latest.1 Thus the supposed date for its composition has fluctuated between B. C. 2337 and B. c. 400. The arguments for the earlier date may all be summed up in the fact that the scene is laid in the patriarchal age; the chief argument for the later date is that the line of thought in the book presupposes a much later intellectual development than can be attributed to the patriarchs.2

Whatever the date of the composition, there is no doubt as to the time fixed in the author's mind for the events described and the discussion to which those events give rise. It is as certain that the Book of Job deals with conditions existing prior to the giving of the law under Moses, as it is that Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar" deals with scenes and events in Rome in the first century before Christ. And while the date and authorship of the

call of Abram. Mr. Townsend says, "The life of Job is placed before the life of Abraham, on the authority of Dr. Hales. Job himself, or one of his contemporaries, is generally supposed to have been the author of this book; which Moses obtained when in Midian, and, with some alterations, addressed to the Israelites." The Old Testament arranged in Historical and Chronological Order, by the Rev. George Townsend, M. A., p. 35, note.

1 "It is not possible to fix the date of the Book (Job) precisely; but it will certainly not be earlier than the age of Jeremiah, and most probably it was written either during or shortly after the Babylonian captivity." An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, by S. R. Driver, D. D., p. 432.

2 For the arguments for the earlier date see note in Townsend's Bible, p. 35; for arguments for the later date see Driver's Introduction, pp. 431-435, and The Book of Job, by R. W. Raymond, Ph. D., pp. 50-62.